Sentry Mode - False Alarms?

[Prunesquallor]

i haven’t used Sentry yet, mostly for the fear of false alarms.

I remember when car alarms first came out. There were false alarms everywhere and no one paid attention to them.

What’s the experience with Sentry so far?

Thanks.

 

[Chanceofthat]

I posted a thread about this already, but yes, depending on where I park in the garage at work I get false alarms from loud motorcycles driving by me.

 

[stayfocus18]

I think I just got a false alarm... I got a notification, rushed to my car did a quick walk around didn't see anything... checked the footage didn't really see anything. One thing i notice that the time stamp on the videos seem to be PST. I'm wondering if a car driving close to mine set it off or someones loud music while driving by...

 

[trm2]

I'm not sure about Sentry Mode specifically, but my Corvette has set off car alarms while driving through parking garages.

 

[Twiglett]

Why worry about it. If there are false alarms, then report them and get it fixed.
Isn't that the whole point of getting OTA updates?
One thing I did find is that even without an alert, sentry mode will record when its triggered by movement, so you will need a decently large USB key. I had a 64G card that runs out of space within a week. Just ordering a 128g replacement so I don't have to unplug for cleanup quite so often.

 

[HelloJohnny]

I'm not sure about Sentry Mode specifically, but my Corvette has set off car alarms while driving through parking garages.

All of my false sentry mode triggers are all from loud ass ICE cars with their stupid custom exhaust

 

[trm2]

All of my false sentry mode triggers are all from loud ass ICE cars with their stupid custom exhaust

Mine is completely stock, just a great V8 rumble.

ETA: I only drive it about 200 miles a year, so I don't set off too many alarms!

 

[Shygar]

I think I just got a false alarm... I got a notification, rushed to my car did a quick walk around didn't see anything... checked the footage didn't really see anything. One thing i notice that the time stamp on the videos seem to be PST. I'm wondering if a car driving close to mine set it off or someones loud music while driving by...

Timestamps are messed up. Got to look at the file name itself for the real time, not the time stamp.

 

[DB-Cooper]

I don't think Sentry relies on alarms, sure I bet it records when there is an alarm event, but Sentry records even if it sees something near the car, feels the lightest taps. It does all without alarms or notifications. I've yet to have an "Alarm" notification, even before Sentry.

That said, Sentry false positives are VERY high. It is super sensitive and seemingly records when nothing is nearby. If you're parked with the rear-in first, if the car on the other side of the road starts up and its headlights turn on, that is enough to activate Sentry recording.

After a day of parking without any incident (e.g. nobody touched the car, no door ding, no side swipe), I will probably have a dozen or so Sentry records. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about, but when Sentry records, there isn't a push notification or anything like that, so I don't think the issue you're concerned about will be any better or worse with Sentry, but you will have to comb through countless uneventful footage and clean your USB storage every so often so it doesn't fill up and stop recording.

 

[Dante]

Sentry mode seems to be set off by me returning to my vehicle, with phone in pocket... weird behaviour. (Though my times in the file name seem right)

 

[Need]

Sentry Mode's alarm and notification are trigger by loud sound not by video or images. So if you get a notification, it is because a loud sound was heard by your car's mic. Now the video clips are difference story. The cameras are on all the time and recording to a 60 minute buffer in the RecentClip folder. The "save" of the 10 min clips to a folder in the SavedClip folder is trigger by a person coming close to your car like within 1 to 2 foot in front or to the 2 sides. If he is directly behind and never moved into view of the side cameras, it won't trigger a "save" of the clips. If you are looking the 30 files saved in your SavedClip (timestamped) folder, you should sort the file name by date/time. Ignore the most recent 3 files. The next 3 newest files will contain the person who trigger the "save".

The timestamp of those files are in UTC (Zulu) Time. The filename contains your local time.

 

[Twiglett]

Sentry Mode's alarm and notification are trigger by loud sound not by video or images. So if you get a notification, it is because a loud sound was heard by your car's mic. Now the video clips are difference story. The cameras are on all the time and recording to a 60 minute buffer in the RecentClip folder. The "save" of the 10 min clips to a folder in the SavedClip folder is trigger by a person coming close to your car like within 1 to 2 foot in front or to the 2 sides. If he is directly behind and never moved into view of the side cameras, it won't trigger a "save" of the clips. If you are looking the 30 files saved in your SavedClip (timestamped) folder, you should sort the file name by date/time. Ignore the most recent 3 files. The next 3 newest files will contain the person who trigger the "save".

The timestamp of those files are in UTC (Zulu) Time. The filename contains your local time.

I've seen saves for shadows and other low level triggers.
I spent some free time going through about 50G of save files, most just very minor things. But that's the point really, it would be nice if it started to clean things up.
Realistically I think the minimum USB size needs to be 128G, my 64 is running out of space within a week but it spends time in a busy parking garage so saves a lot of video.

 

[Need]

I've seen saves for shadows and other low level triggers.

I have Sentry Mode for about a month now and I have it on for 11 hours at home and 10 hours at work every day. So far I have watched every event recorded. I have gone thru about 15 clips a day and see people taking their baby out, putting baby in, getting backpack, checking out my car, adjusting their pants after getting out of the car, etc...

I think I am going to start not watching them at some point.... but it is kind of hard to resist. I am thinking some day I will caught a crime or something happened to the car next to mine....

 

[bulls96]

Getting a lot of false alarms as well.

Even me approaching the car activates it. ALso when I turn on climate control as I pre-cool my car before riding.

To a point when an alert appears on my car when I get in, i don't really investigate anymore... which misses the point of sentry mode?

Feel like its gonna be a "boy cries wolf" problem one day.

 

[Snow Drift]

My wife parked the car at work and we had two recordings, one incident warning... 1) Person walked past the car, 2) Person exited their car after parking next to the M3.

I'll take it. What if that person then did something bad. You want the video before the damage, not only after contact.